SUPERCRITICAL EXTRACTION OF LEMON BALM WITH CARBON DIOXIDE: INFLUENCE OF ETHANOL ADDED AS MODIFIER
George Angelov, Petko Penchev, Jean-Stephane Condoret
Pages: 197-203
Published: 1 Jan 2011
Views: 117
Abstract: The extraction with supercritical fluids is an environmentally clean technology for producing ingredients for pharmacological, cosmetics, and food applications. Among the different natural compounds with bioactive properties, antioxidants are being intensively studied. The important role of antioxidants for human health being well known, an increased interest and demand of such products by the consumers is observed. The most commonly used supercritical fluid is carbon dioxide. However, because of its low polarity, it is less effective as a solvent for extraction of polar compounds. To overcome this shortcoming, polar modifiers (co-solvents) might be mixed with the solvent. This study investigates the influence of a polar compound ethanol, added as a modifier to the basic solvent CO2. The system under study is extraction of rosmarinic acid (RA), a polar substance with strong antioxidant capacity, from the plant Lemon balm (Melissa Officinalis L.). The results obtained show that the quantity of RA extracted from a unity of raw material with co-solvent ethanol is at least five times greater than in case of use of CO2 only. The concentration of rosmarinic acid in the extracts is also about five times higher. The general conclusion is that the polar co-solvent ethanol, by inducing some polarity to the supercritical solvent, boosts significantly its extraction capacity with respect to compounds having polar molecular structure.
Keywords: solvent extraction, antioxidants, rosmarinic acid, lemon balm, supercritical carbon dioxide, modifiers, co-solvents, ethanol
Cite this article: George Angelov, Petko Penchev, Jean-Stephane Condoret. SUPERCRITICAL EXTRACTION OF LEMON BALM WITH CARBON DIOXIDE: INFLUENCE OF ETHANOL ADDED AS MODIFIER. Journal of International Scientific Publications: Materials, Methods & Technologies 5, 197-203 (2011). https://www.scientific-publications.net/en/article/1003297/
Back to the contents of the volume
© 2026 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This permission does not cover any third party copyrighted material which may appear in the work requested.
Disclaimer: The Publisher and/or the editor(s) are not responsible for the statements, opinions, and data contained in any published works. These are solely the views of the individual author(s) and contributor(s). The Publisher and/or the editor(s) disclaim any liability for injury to individuals or property arising from the ideas, methods, instructions, or products mentioned in the content.
